Despite claiming a rare win over Joeys at Hunters Hill last weekend, Kings’ first XV coach Hugh Perrett thinks his team will need to attack a lot better if they want to challenge competition leaders Newington in a mid-week game on Thursday afternoon at Stanmore. 

“I don’t think we played that well, to be fair, but it was good to get the result. It always is against Joeys, particularly playing them there,” Perretty told Rugby News. 

“We defended really well on the weekend but our attack is still struggling and we’re really missing (injured playmaker) Talen (Risati). We’ve got some young kids in there at the moment and while they’re doing their best, they don’t have much experience at this level and it takes time to settle in. 

“But I can’t fault our defence and our scrum was good. We’ve just got to try and get our attack and our lineout going now.”

After three rounds, Kings sit in equal second with two wins and a loss to their name so far. If Perrett’s side can beat an undefeated Newington outfit on Thursday, the 2023 premiers will set themselves up nicely for the backend of the 10-round season. 

But that may be easier said than done against the in-form competition leaders. 

“Newington have some amazing athletes this year so we’ll need to defend well first and foremost. 

“A lot of their players have rugby league backgrounds and they have the ability to score from anywhere. So we can’t let them run wild and score tries from inside their own half. 

“Then when we have the ball, we need to put pressure on them, play rugby in the right parts of the field and try to suffocate them.”

In the other mid-week matches to be played on Thursday ahead of the June long weekend, defending premiers Shore will search for their first win of the season when they host Riverview and Joeys travel to face Scots. 

“It’s really even again and if someone has an off day, they’ll probably lose, which is what happened to us against Riverview,” Perrett explained. 

“We were quite poor that day and we got what was coming.

“Every team looks solid this year. I haven’t seen much of Shore yet but Riverview were good against us, Joeys and Scots look solid and Newington are undefeated. 

“It’s a really good comp this year and it could go a number of different ways.”